The new school of English painters following in the footsteps of Sir Joshua Reynolds
In the third feature of a five-part series of the new school of English painting, Charlotte Mullins meets the history boys.
Mohammed Sami (b. 1984) is an Iraqi-born artist who now lives and works in London. He was shortlisted for the 2025 Turner Prize and has had solo exhibitions at Camden Arts Centre and Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. His work offers a new take on history painting, the category that originally occupied the highest tier of Reynolds’s hierarchy.
However, rather than presenting battle scenes as glorious feats of heroism, as 18th-century Academicians had done, Sami’s paintings employ memory and subjectivity to highlight the complexity of war and its deep psychological cost. His fragmentary approach leaves room for the viewer’s own interpretation of events.
Ben Edge and his dog Luna.
Other artists also wrestle with recent history, from the ‘Pussy Riot’ paintings of Justin Mortimer (b. 1970) to the barber-shop interiors of Hurvin Anderson (b. 1965), who remembers these spaces as a focal point for the Birmingham black community of his youth.
Folklore artist Ben Edge (b. 1985) prefers to draw on ancient English myths and traditions that date back thousands of years. In his ambitious Children of Albion (2025), he brings together dozens of historic episodes, from Viking invaders and the Cerne Abbas giant to Margaret Thatcher and Royal Wedding teacups. William Blake’s naked male youth Albion Rose appears, arms extended, above the green and pleasant land, a nod to Edge’s personal admiration for his visionary predecessor.
This is part three of our five-part series on the new school of English painting. They will be published every Thursday afternoon throughout September.
Click here to read part one on the new abstract painters, and part two on the new figurative painters.
